♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna talk about
"Can my knee cartilage tear heal?"
And when saying my, we're saying your.
Can your knee cartilage heal?
- Right. - Tear.
- Ours can but theirs can't?
- No, there's will.
We'll go into that. - Okay, very good.
- So when you have a tear in your cartilage,
it could be from a sporting event,
or unfortunately, as you get older,
it can just happen with age.
- Yeah. - Oh, joy, Brad.
One more thing to look forward to.
- But I think it often there's a twisting
or some kind of stress on it that maybe...
But not always. - Not always.
My wife's a good example.
Three years ago, she, all of a sudden, had extreme pain
in her knee.
She was on crutches.
So, and it was a cartilage tear.
I mean, or a piece of-
- Yeah, but your wife, rollerbladed from Twin Cities
to Duluth or something like that.
- There's no stress on your knee when you're rollerblading.
- I beg to differ. (chuckles)
Anyways, we're talking about cartilage.
So, but we're really referring to the meniscus cartilage
versus the cartilage at part of the bone.
Yeah. - Yes.
And do you wanna show? - Oh, sure.
So if we're looking at the knee joint here,
this is to patella with the tendon
and we're gonna pull that off
so you can look inside the knee.
You'll see this blue area is the ACL, that's the ligament.
We're looking at this.
It's probably hard to see
because it's kind of white on white.
- [Bob] Is that supposed to be a tear, Brad?
- [Brad] I believe so. We just drew that in there.
That's a tear in the cartilage.
- The cartilage, can it heal?
I'm gonna say as a general rule, it does not heal well.
- Yeah, it's a very slow healing process
- If it's gonna heal at all. - If it does.
- And if you're looking again at the cartilage,
it tends to more heal better
on the outside of the cartilage,
because there's a little more circulation there.
- [Brad] There's a little more blood flow.
That's where it is.
- The other thing that can affect how well it heals
is the type of tear.
The worst type of tear,
and that's what Brad was alluded to,
is the tear that gets folded up.
- Right.
- Because, think about it,
there's not that much space in the knee.
And if your cartilage gets rolled up a little bit,
it's gonna block the knee from moving.
- Right. - It's gonna get locked
or you're gonna feel pain whenever you move the knee.
- Because it should be smooth
and you get that fold, it creates a bump.
I've heard a lot of people,
they've talked about a locking up
and I don't spend a lot of time with it typically.
- Right. - So go get it looked at.
See what's going on. - Because quite often,
you're gonna be headed for surgery if that's the case,
unless it works a way out. - Right.
- That's probably one of the few times
you're gonna require surgery for a cartilage.
Unless it's so bad that you need a knee replacement.
- Right.
You know, I think if it is just cartilage,
sometimes they can go in orthoscopically,
clean it out just to remove that bump.
- Right. Exactly. - Yeah.
And in all, maybe they're doing less of that too, I imagine.
- No, if it's locking up they're doing it.
- The question is, can my knee cartilage tear heal?
Question really should be, does your knee hurt?
'Cause if it doesn't really hurt,
you can function without the knee cartilage
being totally intact. - Sure.
- It can be a tear. So no worries.
You know, like we alluded to, does the knee lock up?
Then it's a problem. - Right.
- You need to go in.
Does your knee lack motion? Same problem.
If it's blocking the motion, you need to go in.
- Particularly, if you're straighten the knee all the way
and you're lacking 5 or 10 degrees of full extension,
it's gonna change the mechanics of the knee,
particularly with walking.
- Does your knee feel weak?
Now in that instance, you could probably do something.
You're gonna strengthen the muscles on it.
We got plenty of videos on that
on how to strengthen the knee.
Just check it out. - Yeah.
- Well, we might as well talk about it.
If you go to our program section of Bob and Brad.
- [Brad] That's our website.
- [Bob] Go to the website and you'll find in that section,
we have a whole bunch of programs on specific topics.
- Right. - One topic is on knee pain.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] And this video is part of that.
And as a part of each video, what do we include, Brad?
- [Bob] Right.
Well, you go down, like on that one,
you'd find the title that says "Strengthening the Knee".
Go to there.
We have actually a PDF printout
that prints out the review
of the whole video, the exercises,
and it works wonderfully.
You don't have to go back and look at the video
every time you try to remember the exercise.
There's absolutely no charge, no cost, not even an email.
It's just a free program. That's a gift.
- Our gift to you. - Right.
- So going on with this now, Brad.
Again, can my knee cartilage tear heal?
We decided most cases not.
But you know, one of the questions,
if you're having a lot of pain,
we would recommend trying a crutch or walker or a cane
for a while and see if you get it to calm down.
- Sure. - Maybe it's just swollen up.
So give it a go.
That's what my wife did.
She was on crutches for quite a while
and then she went to walking sticks.
That was three years ago.
She was crying at the time.
She thought, "I'm gonna get a knee replacement."
She's running. She ran this morning.
- She did?
- Yep, she ran around the lake.
Finally, does the knee swell up? Same thing.
If it's swelling up,
take some of the pressure off of it for a while
- Right. - and see how it handles.
In summary, it really may not matter if there's a tear
in your knee cartilage.
And the question is how you can handle it,
whether you can handle it or not, and calm it down.
- What the symptoms are? - Right. Right.
So, unfortunately again,
it can be a process of aging and...
Brad, I know that all too well. (chuckles)
Add on a few years to you and things start to break down.
- Every decade is another step.
Another chapter in the human body.
- Another challenge. (chuckles)
Thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)